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It my honor and a privilege to serve as president of the Women’s Council of REALTORS, California. The council has filled my career with purpose and passion for the Real Estate industry.

Our state team is strong and focused and consists of line officers, governors, district vice presidents, leadership development chairs and our local network Presidents. We are positioned to fully support the mission and vision of the Council. Our goals are very strategic to strengthen each of our networks through member value. Our California membership numbers are increasing, and our State currently has interest from 6 areas that would like to form a new network. We are very excited about the future and if you are not a member or Strategic Partner, please join us today!

Together we can move California forward through our positive impact and the ripple effect of mentorship and education. This is our moment. If you are a member we are looking to you as a future leader!

Leaders we are looking to you to empower, grow and support.

To really lead is to grow more leaders–and to shine a light on people’s gifts and talents.

Together we are strong, together Leaders are Made Here, together we can change the world!

I am truly looking forward to serving you the members in 2018, and I’m so honored to be your President!

2018 State President – Cheryl Keller

We had a bit of a hill to climb in terms of our membership, but we were determined to overcome it. We increased our membership numbers by almost doubling them this year and our goal for 2018 is to do that again. When we achieve this it will qualify us as a Mega Network which I believe we can be.

We have a great team of officers in place for 2018 and we have great members. Together we will achieve this goal.

Women’s Council is an organization that is truly a leader in terms building leaders. Eileen mentioned some of the stats earlier.

I’ve been a member for 7 years now and I’ve watched people like those introduced earlier and many others across the state and the country grow and move on into higher leadership positions.

You might be thinking you wouldn’t want to be up here like I am right now and trust me I was right there with you and I’m still not totally comfortable up here. What I’ve learned is that Women’s Council has a way of building leaders sometimes without you even realizing it’s happening to you. The task is to ask and that’s what they do. They ask you to do something, then something else, then something else, and each time you grow a little more. Before you know it you’ve evolved into a leader and you’re up here saying, 7 years ago when I joined this network there was no way I would have believed you if you told me I would be here today!

I encourage you to consider becoming a member or a strategic partner and learn more about Women’s Council. If you want to align yourself or your company with leaders in our industry then aligning yourself or your company with Women’s Council is a smart decision.

You don’t have to aspire to move up into CAR, NAR, or political positions to benefit from Women’s Council. If you want to grow your own real estate business then you’re already a leader of your own business and you will benefit from being a member of Women’s Council.

However, let me clarify something in order to benefit you can’t just become a member and expect referrals and leadership growth to rain down upon you. You have to become an engaged member, you need to get involved on a project team or become a board member then you’ll see the growth and opportunity. We would love to have you join us!

I have a much different feeling going into 2018 than I did going into 2017. We had a great team in 2017 and we have another great team for 2018. We’re building a legacy and have big goals to achieve this year. We have our calendar on the back of the program and Tim Hayden our 2018 Program Director is going to talk for a few minutes about that, but before that I have one more person to thank.

Thank you again for coming today!

Karen Benefield

South Orange County President

December 2017

As we come to a close of an amazing and very productive year I am so grateful for each and every one of you!

Team Work Makes the Dream Work and we proved that to be true this year.

Our success is measured in so many ways:

At the Local Network level:

The programming, membership retention and recruitment, the level of involvement from our members, and the industry events have been phenomenal!

You have set the bar high!!!

At the District Vice President and Governor level:

Your involvement as liaison to the local networks on behalf of the State has proven to be instrumental in their success! You worked together in groups to put on great programs at the state meetings and your support of each other inspired us all!

At the State Leadership level:

Our Project Team Chairs, Vice Chairs, Committee Chairs, Vice-Chairs performed their roles with enthusiasm, professionalism and helped us to build a fantastic leadership pipeline!!!

The Line Officer team comprised of a perfect D.I.S.C. and we brought you great speakers, training, fun and creativity! My heart swells with pride at what we accomplished this year!

We look forward to keeping and enhancing the momentum in 2018!

Thank you for all you have done and continue to do to make your Women’s Council experience the best it can be and remember to “Try Everything”!

“California Leading the Way”

Before I say my thank you’s and share our accomplishments this year I want to tell you a little bit about your 2018 President Cheryl Keller.

Cheryl is a passionate, determined, creative, and energetic leader! These past 3 years we have spent together on the line, I have learned so much about her, her sense of humor, infectious laugh, determination to make life better for all is Contagious. She will serve you well and will build on all that past leaders have done before her. Give her and her team your full support, engage and be the Positive Ripple she knows you can be!

We asked you to “Try Everything” and when you did you found new skills and opportunities for growth both personally and professionally! Thank you for stepping out and up!

This year we gave you:

Training, Training, and more Training starting with the October 2016 businss planning retreat meeting in Long Beach where we met with incoming 2017 state leadership team.

I asked them to do homework in preparation for our State Leadership retreat they did it and the results were amazing, they grew their leadership skills, became great mentors, facilitators and all stepped into their greatness! Groups were formed with your District Vice Presidents and Governors creating and facilitating training programs that are timely and relevant for your local network success. Leadership Support Project Teams A& B were created to replace the Strategic committees and they brought fun, engaging and interactive training!

A new strategic partner plan brought you Diamond partners at a higher level of commitment and more opportunities to be in front of you our members, and we assigned a line officer liaison to assure clear transparent communication with our valued partners and we also created a survey that helped to keep us in line with our promises to them.

A rebate program that encouraged attendance at our State meetings, which has proved successful and has helped to train and grow your leadership pipeline.

A member photo shoot to encourage current head shots and updating your Woman’s Council profiles and to use for your other marketing pieces.

A second chance retention contest, we provided you with a script to call all non renewed members and we gained back over 10% of non renewed members!

The winner is the East Valley Network, with 25% rejoining! Congratulations to Jennifer Higgins and her leadership team

We gave 8 state meeting scholarships and created a commitment letter for you to sign agreeing to many things one of which was a testimonial for us to use on our website, this also helps you at the local level for retention and recruitment.

We asked our speakers to provide testimonials for our website again showing the value of being a member and allowing our speakers to have an opportunity to see and speak about our value. Our Diamond Partners brought us amazing presenters, and we brought you a new type of training with Bruce Bishop, Kerstin O’Shields and Collette Carlson, the feedback has been fabulous!

We added Names in the News to highlight you the member for your accomplishments you have achieved over the year, be sure and let us know so we can add you to this page!

We created an Ambassador program whereby leaders at our state meetings wore Ask Me so you had a go to person if you had any questions about our state meetings. We had over 90 First Time Attendees this year.

We created a new and more user-friendly state website and trained you on how to use it. And our Private Facebook group pages have been instrumental in communicating with you, thank you for indulging us!

We concentrated on growing our leadership pipeline and as a result of years working on this we had 22 applicants for 13 positions…WOW!

We attended many local network functions throughout the state and are honored and privileged to have gotten the chance to see all your talents first hand.

We hit the road for 4 days and logged 1186 miles to bring you local network transition workshops, we had 25 networks participate and 139+ members attend!

Thank you to all networks that worked on this contest! We gained 10% of the REALTOR members we had lost as of March 31, 2017.

Retention is where your future leadership comes from and recruiting keeps us fresh and excited! Remember to utilize your first year membership communication tool provided to you by National!

We currently have 32 networks, of those 3 are Mega Delta, Long Beach and San Diego, networks (80 or more members) 10 Large network’s Central Coast, Coastal West, Greater Fesno, Marin, Monterey, Placer, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Solano and Ventura County 50-79 and 19 small networks.

Mid Year Membership contest winner is North Central Valley add 24% more members!

When I ran as your treasurer my promise to you was to be the member’s member, by that I meant that we are the same, we have different roles, but we are all members of an amazing organization, my hope is that you found that to be be true, and that my role as the leader of this amazing team brought you the tools and resources you needed to be successful.

Remember as Leaders to:
Stand Behind Your Network rather than in front as this will most definitely bring your success as a team!

Thank you for the journey you have provided me, the learning for me was exponential….you gave to me far more than I ever gave to you…I love you all….. Now as you head into 2018 support each other, learn each other’s leadership strengths and weaknesses and use them to make your team the best it can be!